Minimally invasive medical procedures are performed in various vessels and ducts in the body. In some procedures, it is desirable to treat varicose veins using minimally invasive procedures.
One minimally invasive procedure for treating varicose veins, for example, includes the endovascular injection of a sclerosing agent to ablate the diseased veins. Preferably the sclerosing agent is provided in the form of foam having greater viscosity than a liquid sclerosing agent.
A foam is prepared by agitating the liquid scleroscent with air or other type of gas to create the foam. Typically, two individual syringes connected together through Luer connections with a stopcock and the two syringes are used to prepare the foam. One syringe is used to introduce the liquid sclerosing agent to the system while the other syringe is used to introduce the gas. The operator then utilizes both hands to alternatively depress the syringe plungers, rapidly forcing the sclerosing agent and air mixture through the narrowed ends of the syringes to produce foam for injection into a patient.
Problems may arise with the use of two individual syringes however. The Luer connections with the syringes and the stopcock may leak if the proper mating of the Luer connectors is not made to the stopcock or the torquing of the connection is not proper to create a seal. In addition, the dual syringes require that the operator use both hands to generate the foam and thus, prevents the operator from any other operations at the same time. Further the amount of pressure necessary to depress the plungers of the syringes to repeatedly exchange the sclerosing agent to generate the foam may be very high and difficult to repeat a sufficient number of times to generate foam sufficiently viscous to inject into the patient.
There is a need for a device and a method to provide a leak-free system to generate foam for injection into a patient and that can provide single-handled operation and avoid operator fatigue.